Expect the Unexpected – Managing Companies through Change

When it comes to dealing with change there exists a vast variety of different theories and philosophies on the subject. Many of these draw from difference disciplines including behavioural science, psychology and even sociology all the way over to systems thinking and engineering. The basic principle that underlies the concept is that change does not happen in isolation, instead it affects the entire system (or organization) around it in different ways. This includes each and every system, process and even person who is affected by it.

So, to manage change in any way that can be considered successful one needs to necessarily understand how this ripple effect of change works and how it spreads across various levels and circles of impact. There needs to be a focus on attending to these wider impacts and effects of the changes. This means that apart from just considering the obvious and tangible effects of the change, it is indeed just as important, if not more so, to consider the personal impact on those individuals who are affected by these changes on a more granular level.

The individuals themselves fit together to make up the organization and if we are able to manage the change to some effect at that level, it adds up to huge benefits as we scale up. This means understanding the journey towards working and behaving in new and interesting ways that these individuals tend to take once affected or impacted by the change. To understand these effects, it is very important for any manager, business analyst or professional to take some kind of change management training and even work towards attaining a change management certification as this would provide them with the right tools to properly gauge these effects.

One of the tools that a change management course would expose you to would be the Change Curve model, which is a great model that can be used to describe the organizational and personal process of change and their interdependence to a high degree of detail. All of this tells us that change management definitely is a very broad field that varies vastly with the different organizations, teams, cultures and even strategies that exist across the globe. This can even vary within a firm from project to project just because of the different people who are involved as a whole.

This effect causes many organizations to opt for consultants who are well versed in the tools and methodologies which have been formally laid down for change management, and with good reason. It’s because it works, and works very well.

This means the use of toolkits, outline plans and checklists for what needs to be done, how it needs to be done and how to manage the changes in a successful manner. In fact, these tools and methodologies can be easily picked up by doing a change management certification online and any project manager who is seriously considering a future in the field needs to have one of these certifications in their arsenal as soon as possible.

When as a professional one must manage change, whether or not they subscribe to any particular methodologies to do so, it is prudent to first consider what it actually would mean to manage change in this particular situation. It could be to minimize losses, maximize compatibility, cut down on costs or a whole range of other things. This means that an individual who is dealing with change management must have a wide range of skill sets that they can deploy in any kind of situation, as may come to be demanded of them. Change management tends to focus more on the people who are affected and how to best transition them, and how this positive transitioning would add up to an overall positive effect in the long run.

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This is a guest post by one of a number of contributors working in the project management field. We welcome high quality news items, blog posts and articles about project management. All content will be moderated before approval.